Needed: Safe Way To Celebrate The 4th

If it is allowed to continue on its present course, we will not have to worry about a nuclear war; we will blow ourselves up a little bit at a time until so many of us are maimed, blind or dead that there won`t be enough whole people left to stand and sing ``God Bless America.``

Forgive the exaggeration, but it isn`t as out of line as it might seem. The facts concerning the death and mayhem caused by fireworks are shocking.

If you are reading this on ``the 4th,`` it means you can still see; and if you are lucky, your kids still have all their fingers; and if you are real lucky, nobody in your family has been burned by a firecracker or a sparkler.

But this is a morning newspaper, so maybe it is early in the day. And if you luck out this year, there is always next year. The cruel 4th of July statistics will get you or yours sooner or later.

It goes without saying, of course, that your nerves are probably jangled from the explosions of bomblike fireworks in your neighborhood.

This is a holiday celebration?

No. This is a form of pyrotechnic madness.

It is time to reassess the way in which we celebrate our independence. There has to be a better way than to hang the entire holiday on explosives.

Consider that 20,000 people are injured by fireworks each year to the extent that they require medical treatment. Thousands more suffer injuries that are treated at home. Half of the injuries are to children under 15. Dozens suffer eye injuries, some of which result in blindness; and each year there is a death toll, either among the users of fireworks or those who manufacture them.

Hundreds of thousands of people will watch municipal fireworks tonight that were made by people who were killed just days ago in a fireworks factory explosion in Terlton, Okla. The blast, which killed 21, was the worst of its kind since the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms began enforcing fireworks laws in 1970.

The Bureau said that since 1979, there have been 63 such blasts, which killed a total of 80 persons and injured 155.

Many of the blasts occur in illicit manufacturing operations. Eleven people were killed in Tennessee in a 1983 explosion. Two Indiana University students were killed when a barn blew up in 1979. A man died in an Indiana blast in 1983, three died in Ohio in 1982, and one was killed in Wisconsin in an explosion that injured four others.

The list could go on and on. Fireworks offer an opportunity for quick profit, and because there is a ready market for them, even though they are largely illegal, they are covertly manufactured and distributed in a multimillion-dollar business.

Federal authorities said that much of this business is conducted in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri.

On the 4th of July several years ago in Chicago, fireworks started a fire in which a fireman and policeman were nearly killed when a roof collapsed as they looked for people in a burning building. A church was destroyed in another fireworks-caused fire. In another, a three-story building burned down. While the fires were burning, doctors struggled to save the sight of an 8-year-old Berwyn boy who was hit by an exploding firecracker. Other doctors could not reattach the fingers of a 17-year-old youth because his palm was blown away by ``a big firecracker.`` A 9-year-old was in the hospital after a smoke bomb exploded in his face.

In Kankakee that same year, a test rocket fired in the afternoon by Jaycee members landed in $4,000 worth of fireworks intended for an evening display. The entire pile exploded, burning four persons and sending everyone in the park scurrying for cover.

These were just some of the incidents that made news. Obviously there were countless others.

There has to be a better way. Where are the creative electronics geniuses, for example? Can`t they come up with displays for us to watch at the park on the night of the 4th?

Explosive fireworks are as outdated as burning candles on the Christmas tree, and much more dangerous. They should be eliminated from the hands of unwary kids as well as from community displays at the lakefront and in the parks.

It is time to shake off at least this aspect of our gun powder mentality.